


Waiting for the Spatula

by pumpkinpatch95



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode: s07e06 The Al Smith Dinner, Extended Scene, F/M, Idiots in Love, Romance, They're literally put in a room with a bed, What am I supposed to do with that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24530881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinpatch95/pseuds/pumpkinpatch95
Summary: Extended take on Josh and Donna’s conversation during The Al Smith Dinner. What if Lou hadn’t interrupted them? And what if she had closed the door?
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 5
Kudos: 89





	Waiting for the Spatula

“Right now, it’s all hands on deck, so, work it out.” Lou handed Josh the folder and walked out, closing the door behind her.

He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t look at her because he _knew_ how she was looking at him. With those eyes that bring him to his knees. So he began with the normal questions, taking care not to say what he was actually thinking.

“What kind of on the record experience do you have?” _Why are you here?_

“Is this a job interview?” Donna shot back.

“I’m the campaign manager, I hire the staff, generally involves a job interview. On the record experience?” _Let me cling to formality please, it’s all I have._

“Six hours ago, nationally televised press conference, Santos-McGarry campaign.”

“References, if we want to pursue this?” _You looked amazing giving that speech._

“Josh Lyman, campaign manager, try the main switchboard.”

“He’d tell you that campaigns demand loyalty. You don’t go working for the other guy.” _You broke my heart._

“Who happened to be the party’s front-runner.”

“You knew I wasn’t supporting him. Me, your mentor in professional politics.” _Me, the guy you nursed back to health when I was shot._

“The guy who taught me how to answer a phone, who kept me in grunt-level servitude ‘cause I knew he liked his hamburgers burned like hockey pucks?”

“You ditched me, when I gave you a career.” _You ditched me and I don’t know how to live without you._

“As a short order cook, I’m still waiting for the spatula-”

“DAMNIT, Donna,” he interrupted. “You ditched ME. I needed you and you ditched me. And shut up about the hamburgers; you and I both know that you were so much more than that. Your skill, your knowledge, it was – is – incredible. It doesn’t surprise me at all how well you’ve done with the Russell campaign, and now with us. You’ve been so much more than an assistant for a long time.”

Her faced softened, just slightly, but her eyes conveyed even more hurt. “Then why didn’t you help me grow in my career?” she replied. “Why didn’t you have me play a larger role in policy negotiations on the Hill, explore future career opportunities, send me…” She was about to say, “send me on more official travel.”

He looked at her with pain splashed across his face. “I sent you to Gaza,” he said softly. “I did that.”

“Josh,” Donna said, in that tone that absolutely melts him. “That wasn’t your fault. You didn’t bomb that car. What you did do is fly halfway around the world to Germany, stay there for days and then” – her voice had picked up speed and volume now – “I came back and nothing changed. I thought…I don’t know what I thought but I thought something was different. But it wasn’t. You were the same, and you blew me off when I wanted to talk about my career.”

That was it. “I couldn’t let you go!” he finally exclaimed. “Even before Gaza, I couldn’t let you go. After…” he paused, staring at her with the same expression he had in that hospital in Germany. “After, I couldn’t let you out of my sight.”

At some point during this conversation they had slowly moved closer to each other, and by now they were only separated by about a foot. Josh could see all the gorgeous specks of color in her eyes.

Donna opened her mouth to speak but closed it again when she realized Josh had actually managed to render her speechless.

Meanwhile, Josh had developed a slight smirk on his face. “And what about you?” he inquired. “It’s not like you took – or applied for – other jobs. Everyone in Washington knows I’m useless without you. They know what you’re capable of. You could have been hired anywhere. Why did you stay?”

“It’s the White House,” Donna murmured with her eyes downcast. It was the same excuse she had told C.J. during the lockdown – the same excuse she told everyone. Except the words felt empty now, and she couldn’t justify them anymore. C.J.’s reply kept ringing in her ear.

She looked up at him defiantly and said “Okay, screw it. It wasn’t the White House, it was you. Is that what you want to hear?”

Now it was Josh’s turn to be speechless. They danced around this for so many years, this thing between them. Through touches that were just slightly too intimate, through flirty banter and a complete disregard for personal space. Through talks about red lights and nights camped out at each other’s hospital bedsides.

They toed the line but they never ever crossed it. And God help him, Josh was scared. He couldn’t make his mouth form words, too overwhelmed with emotion to even move.

After an extended, tension filled pause, their faces mere inches away at this point, Donna started to back away. Clearly, he wasn’t ready to actually face his emotions, or worse yet he was trying to figure out how to reject her.

But her movement broke Josh out of his trance, and he grabbed her arm and pulled her close once again. “Then why did you leave?” he asked, his voice breaking just slightly. “Why did you leave me?”

“Maybe,” Donna replied, “I was tired of eight years of loving my boss and being able to do absolutely nothing about it.”

She barely got the sentence out before Josh’s lips were on hers. After a moment of surprise, she started to kiss him back, and suddenly they were kissing like they had been doing it for years. And really, hadn’t everything just been in preparation for this moment?

Josh’s hands were cupping her face, and Donna’s hands clung to his waist. His tongue swiped against her lips, and she quickly opened her mouth to give him more access. The kiss deepened, and suddenly their hands were everywhere. Josh’s fingers traced down Donna’s body, skimming the sides of her breasts and she gasped, tearing her lips away from his for the first time.

Josh took the break of contact as an opportunity to shift his mouth’s attention to Donna’s jaw and then to her neck. He tried to be gentle because he knew she would be on television soon and a hickey wouldn’t be great optics, but he was fighting a losing battle with his willpower.

Donna’s hands were now gripping his ass and pulling him tighter, and if she didn’t already know how she felt about him…well she was going to feel it now. Literally. As he began sliding his hands up her shirt (her jacket had been tossed to the floor at some point, although for all the electoral votes in California Josh couldn’t remember when), Donna said with a grin “Guess lemon lyman dot com was right about you.”

“Shut up,” he said, capturing her lips once more. They started unconsciously moving towards the bed, only realizing it when the back of Donna’s legs suddenly hit the mattress. She laid down on the bed, pulling Josh on top of her.

Josh’s brain, meanwhile, was about to short circuit. He had been dreaming – fantasizing really – about this for so long. And all those fantasies over all those years had nothing on what it felt like in real life. One of his hands roamed freely under her shirt now as the other was placed on the bed, holding him up. She moaned as he palmed her breast, fingers grazing soft lace.

Somewhere deep inside his brain, a voice reminded him that they were still essentially in a campaign office, that there were any number of people that could bust through the door at any moment, and that he was supposed to be working to get his boss elected to be the leader of the free world. But right now the free world could wait, because he was making out with Donnatella Moss.

He grabbed her and flipped them around so she was on top. She was straddling him now, knees placed on either side of his hips. She started moving her own hips, and Josh was now painfully hard. So far they had kept most of their clothes on – Josh’s tie was barely loose. But he was starting to forget where they were. He grabbed the bottom of Donna’s shirt and began to tug it upwards.

“Wait,” she gasped, sitting up and bringing her shirt back down, although she remained on top of him. “I know we’re in a hotel bedroom, but we’re not exactly alone.”

“Yeah,” Josh breathed. “We should…people outside…work to do.” It was going to take him a little while to put together complete sentences. And he definitely wasn’t going to make much progress with Donna’s ass still rubbing against his crotch.

He looked down, running his hands along her thighs, and Donna seemed to realize that she was going to have to separate them if they planned to actually leave the room. With a deep breath that showed Josh how much self-control she was mustering, Donna swung one of her legs over so she was no longer on top of him and slowly stood up off the bed.

Josh sat up and ran his hands through his hair. Luckily, his hair (and clothes) always looked like a mess these days, so he was pretty much in the clear. Donna, on the other hand, was another story. She put her jacket on which hid how wrinkled her shirt had gotten, but her hair looked like…well it looked exactly like she had rolled around in bed.

Josh chuckled and walked over to her, smoothing her hair as best he could until it looked somewhat respectable. He looked her deeply in her eyes as he ran his fingers through, something he longed to do for years. “Donna…” he said softly.

“I know,” Donna replied. “And we’ll have time for talking and…other things…later. But right now we have a president to elect, and I need a job. So, boss, did I get the gig?”

Josh kissed her in response, a light but romantic kiss that was full of promise. “Yeah,” he said. “Just don’t leave me again.”

“Never,” Donna said, giving her that smile that had lit up his entire world since that campaign office in New Hampshire. She walked out the door, giving his hand a quick squeeze before she left.

Josh stared after her, just as he had done so many times before, except this time he wasn’t longing to kiss her. He was longing to kiss her _again._

He stood alone in the room for a moment, conjuring images of Leo in a speedo to get himself under control. Would anyone mind if he took a cold shower right now?

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Sorry if I was a bit of a tease, but there really was only so far they could go given their location. I haven’t written fanfiction in several years and this is my first West Wing fic so I’m a little rusty, go easy on me. But this scene got them so *close* to having a real discussion and I wanted to see it carried through. Also, this scene takes place in a room with a BED. I mean, come on.


End file.
